


A-List Problems

by heyjupiter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kim Kardashian - Freeform, Multi, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2269674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tony discovers that Bruce and Pepper have been spending all their time playing some dumb app, he doesn't get the appeal and resolves to build a better one. Unfortunately, Tony might have some trouble understanding the concept of "casual gaming."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A-List Problems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tarajuku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarajuku/gifts).



"Sir? Might I suggest you take a break from your work to acquire sustenance?" JARVIS asked.

"In a minute," Tony said, without looking up from the War Machine prototype he was working on.

Sixty seconds later, JARVIS said, "Sir, you've been working without cease for sixteen hours. My protocols require me to insist that you take a break."

"Bullshit. I never programmed anything like that," Tony said, as JARVIS cut the electricity to his arc welder.

"No, sir, but Dr. Banner did."

"Bruce?" Tony asked, equal parts proud and betrayed. "Where is he, anyway? I guess anymore he does normally interrupt me before this point. Or Pepper. Where's Pepper?"

"Dr. Banner and Ms. Potts are both in Ms. Potts's parlor."

Tony snorted. At some point in time he'd programmed JARVIS to call each room in Stark Towers' living quarters by a unique name. There was at least one of every room from Clue, five different "parlors," and a chamber of secrets. Tony's bedroom was officially known as "mission control."

"Fine," he said, "I guess I'll go see what those losers are up to."

"Very good, sir," JARVIS said. The rest of the lights in Tony's lab shut off, forcing Tony to find his way to the door by the light of his own arc reactor. 

Tony took the elevator down five levels and found Pepper and Bruce in Pepper's parlor, as JARVIS said. They were both lounging on a sofa, still in their pajamas. Long empty mugs sat on the table in front of them. Pepper was casually leaning against Bruce, but they were both staring down at their StarkPhones and tapping away. Neither of them noticed he was there. Tony cleared his throat and got no response. Finally, he walked up and settled himself on Bruce's lap.

Bruce startled and clutched his phone. "Uh, hey, Tony," he said. 

Tony frowned. "What are you two up to? Are you planning a surprise party for me? Because my birthday isn't for months. But if you are, I have some suggestions."

"No, we're just…" Bruce said. He trailed off and blushed. Bruce was a terrible liar.

"We've just been catching up on email," Pepper said casually. She was a better liar, usually. 

"You've been catching up on email all day? I'd buy that for you, maybe, but Bruce, you get like, one email a day."

"I was just… keeping her company."

"Uh huh," Tony said. "Because you're so social."

Bruce shrugged and wouldn't look at Tony.

"I'm _starving_. Why don't we all get some dinner? It's, uh… two a. m.," Pepper said, trying not to sound surprised at the hour.

"Oh my god, it's two a. m.?" Bruce asked.

"Seriously, should I be worried? Did you guys get brainwashed? Loki's not here, is he? Or wait, are you guys sick? Should I get a doctor? Wait, Bruce, you _are_ a doctor." Tony reached out and checked both their foreheads for fever.

"We're _fine_ ," Pepper said, trying not to look at her phone.

"Alright, get up," Tony said. He briefly wondered if this was how Pepper felt when he stayed in the lab for hours on end. But then, she knew what she was getting into with Tony. Pepper was supposed to be the responsible one, so it was much more disconcerting when she was the one flaking out.

Bleary-eyed, Bruce and Pepper followed Tony to the kitchen. They sat down and he could see their hands clench into fists. Tony recognized people trying to stop themselves from doing something they wanted to do. He rummaged around and produced a box of Pop-Tarts. "Here, don't say I never take a turn cooking dinner."

Bruce and Pepper both took a shiny foil package and began eating strawberry Pop-Tarts, without even toasting them.

"Guys, I'm kind of freaking out here."

"God, these are good," Pepper said. "I haven't had a Pop-Tart in _forever_."

"Me neither," Bruce agreed.

"Pepper, are you texting under the table?" Tony asked. "You _are._ Who are you talking to?"

"I'm not texting!" Pepper mumbled.

"We're in a polyamorous relationship, so you're not cheating. Right?"

"Of _course_ not!"

"Because, I mean, we could talk about--"

"It's not that! I have my hands full enough with the two of you," Pepper snapped. "Uh, in a good way." She flashed a smile and took another bite of Pop-Tart.

"Okay. You're not cheating, you're not sick, you're not brainwashed--or so you say--so what is it? I'm feeling left out," Tony said, aware that his tone was beginning to be whiny.

Sheepishly, Bruce--beautiful Bruce, who was very susceptible to guilt trips--ran a hand through his hair and said, "Look, Tony, it's just--we just started playing this game--" Pepper made a disapproving sound, and Bruce shrugged and continued, "And it's, um, really addictive. I guess we lost track of time. It's nothing to worry about, though. It's just this dumb thing."

Tony laughed. "Oh my god," he said. He laughed harder. 

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked. "Do you want some.. water or something?"

Tony couldn't stop laughing for another full minute. Finally he caught his breath and said, "Wow, oh my god, that's a relief. Swear to god, I really thought something was wrong. But you guys just discovered Candy Crush."

Pepper bit her lip and looked back at her phone. "Yeah," she said.

"It's not Candy Crush, though, is it? Please tell me it's not Candy Crush."

"No, it's not Candy Crush," Bruce said.

"Thank God," Tony said, finally relaxing enough to eat his Pop-Tart. "Wait, so what is it? I wanna play."

"It's dumb," Bruce said. "I'm going to delete it."

"Me too," Pepper said. "I'm totally going to delete it. Tomorrow."

"Oh my god. You're both blushing. This is so cute. You're both so cute. I _have_ to know what game you're playing."

"It really doesn't matter, does it?" Bruce said.

"I can't believe you don't trust me enough to tell me what game you're playing. You guys have seen me doing some pretty embarrassing stuff. The whole _world_ has seen me doing some pretty embarrassing stuff."

"It's not that we don't _trust_ you," Pepper said.

"It's just…" Bruce said.

"I will hack into the cloud if I have to, it'll take like thirty seconds, so you might as well just tell me."

That hung in the air for a long moment. Finally, Pepper said, "I downloaded it first. I just--I read about it in Vogue, and I thought, you know, I should stay up on trends. And then I asked Bruce to download it, because, he was still there finishing his tea, and you had already gone up to the lab, and you get a bonus if you have friends in the game."

"And, uh, it turns out it's more fun than it sounds," Bruce said, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

"So what is this trove of undending delights already?"

Pepper sighed and handed over her phone. Tony looked down at the screen and broke into hysterical laughter. "Oh, wow. This is a really good one, guys. A+ prank, seriously."

Bruce and Pepper looked down at their hands quietly, and Tony took another look at the game. "Wait. You're level 18 in this game. You… that's not a joke. You actually spent the entire day playing Kim Kardashian Hollywood?"

"Oh, what, you're allowed to spend the whole day dicking around with another suit, but I can't do something fun myself?" Pepper asked.

"What? No, of course, you can. I want you to have fun. I want you both to have fun," Tony said. "Preferably fun that includes _me_ , but hey, you guys can do what you want. It's just… surprising."

"It's really fun," Bruce said, pleadingly. "You should… you should try it."

"Bruce, no," hissed Pepper. "Tony, we're going to delete it. You… there's no need for you to download this app."

"Are you saying you guys don't think I can handle it?"

"It's just a stupid game," Bruce said.

"A stupid game that has apparently completely entranced the two smartest people I know. I want to see!" Tony pulled out his phone, but Pepper put her hand over his.

"Tony, no," she said. "At least--at least not tonight. Okay? Let's just get some sleep."

"Yeah," Bruce said, tapping his phone.

Pepper stood up purposefully, pulling Tony behind her. "Bruce, you too," she said.

"Yeah, I'm coming," he said.

Pepper peered over his shoulder. "Bruce, you already have four stars on that photoshoot. Just leave it and come to bed."

"I--I almost have five, though, just… there," Bruce said, sounding noticeably happier. 

"Okay, now put it down. Simon's not the boss of you," Pepper said. "He's not the boss of us," she repeated firmly.

Bruce sighed, then turned his phone off and said, "You're right, you're right."

"I love you both so much," Tony said.

"I love you more than I hate Willow Pape," Pepper said.

"I love you more than Maria loves making me buy beach houses," Bruce said.

"I hate that I have no clue what you're talking about, but I still love you," Tony said. He walked toward the bedroom next door and said, "Let's get some sleep. I'm going to need energy to face Hollywood tomorrow."

"You have no idea," Bruce mumbled. Pepper laughed, and Tony felt another twinge of being left out, and he resolved that he would definitely have to download the game first thing tomorrow. Or… first thing after Bruce and Pepper fell asleep.

Pepper noticed the look on Tony's face and said, "Nope, give me your phone, Tony. You need to sleep, too."

"I--" Tony started to defend himself, but Pepper had already grabbed it from him. She stacked it with her and Bruce's phones and put them in her bedside table, which locked with a hand scanner. 

She said, "JARVIS, please let us know if there are any emergencies, but otherwise, that drawer needs to stay locked until 6 a. m."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ridiculous," Tony muttered. Ridiculous that Pepper thought Tony would be stopped by a simple locked drawer.

By the time Pepper and Bruce fell asleep, it was fairly late. But despite Pepper's best attempts (and Bruce's half-hearted attempts) to straighten out Tony's sleep schedule, he was still no stranger to staying up all night when projects caught his interest. He crept out to his lab and pulled out a new StarkPhone prototype he'd abandoned last week. He quickly finished tweaking it and brought it online. After initializing the OS, he downloaded Kim Kardashian Hollywood.

"Well, this is ridiculous," he told JARVIS. "I'm an E-list celebrity and Kim Kardashian is an A-lister? I think we all know that in actuality, I am an A-list celebrity and she's like, B-list at best."

"Indeed, sir. Would you like me to pull up rankings from recent magazines?"

"No, no, I already know it. And I have to work _retail_? Why do Bruce and Pepper think this is fun. This is _terrible_."

Tony tapped away at the game, helping Kim Kardashian and angrily working on his modeling career. "I can't _believe_ Dirk Diamonds tweeted that shit about me. I will _destroy_ him."

"Very good, sir."

"Hey, if you still have those lists about how I'm better than Kim Kardashian, I'd love to see them right about now."

"Here you are, sir."

After a few hours of obsessively climbing his way up to the Hollywood C-list, Tony said, "Okay. I think I see the appeal of this, but I can do better. Take notes, JARVIS. What about an app where you create your own superhero, and you have to fight villains to gain levels… and then instead of getting to the A-list, you get invited to join the Avengers? It could still have all the dumb shit this game has, like earning money to buy new accessories… but with an element of strategy to it, too."

Tony cast aside Hollywood and dedicated himself to creating a framework for his Avengers app. He was puzzling over battle mechanics when Bruce wandered in and silently put a thermos of coffee in front of Tony.

"Oh! Bruce, you're the best! Look, see, I get what you guys like about that game, but I think we can do a lot better."

"You didn't sleep at all, did you?" Bruce asked.

Tony ignored him and said, "Look, the Kardashian app presumes that you want to be a model. But who wants to be a model, right? Wouldn't it be better to be--"

"A movie star?"

"No, dummy, a superhero."

"Hmm," Bruce said noncommittally. 

"Here, look, I've been designing an app that takes the best gameplay elements of this but makes them _cooler_. I'll need a graphic designer to take it to the next level, of course, but you can see where I'm going with it."

Bruce sipped his tea and looked over Tony's designs. He didn't seem as enthusiastic as Tony had assumed he'd be. 

"I mean, obviously, it's a work in progress," Tony said. "What else should we add?"

"Oh… no, it looks great, I'm sure people will love it."

"But… do _you_ love it?"

"Oh. Tony, yeah, it looks… it looks fun."

"Bruce! You're a terrible liar. You know that. Stop trying it and just help me fix the game."

"It's… Tony, what do you think Pepper and I like about the Kardashian game?"

"Well. The game's general appeal is obvious. It's modeled for addictive gameplay, with never-ending quests and new items that are constantly out of reach. Plus the in-game rivalry with Dirk Diamonds is _annoying_ , not to mention the humiliation of being an E-lister is motivational." Tony sipped his coffee and said, "I think for a lot of people there's an aspirational component, too, but I don't know about you… if I tried to take you to Lif nightclub I'm pretty sure you'd pretend to go to the bathroom and then flee into the night."

Bruce laughed. "You're right about that."

"And I'm pretty sure you don't give a shit about unlocking new clothes, either. Pepper… might, but she has nicer clothes in real life than in the game."

"That's true, too."

"So…?"

"It's… the game is supposed to be an _escape._ "

"What? An escape from what? You're not happy here?"

"No, no. It's not that I'm not happy. But it's also… uh… it's nice to have this little world where the worst thing that can possibly happen to you is that a fake person tweets a mean thing about your outfit. Nobody dies in Kim Kardashian's Hollywood. This app, this Avengers app…"

"Well, nobody dies in it, either," Tony said. "If you lose a battle you just have to restart a level."

"That's… that's not really what I mean, I don't think," Bruce said, rubbing his temples. "It's just…"

"Ah. I get it," Tony said. "It's not an escape. It's just what you do."

"Well, yeah, kind of."

"Huh." Tony scrolled through his code and said, "So you don't like being an Avenger?"

"Tony. You know I… you know it's complicated, for me," Bruce said apologetically. "That's what Pepper and I like about the Hollywood game. It's very, very simple. It kind of just shuts your brain down. I think maybe we just need to do that once in awhile. Don't… don't you ever feel that way?"

"Why do you think I drink?" Tony asked, hoping it sounded like a joke. Bruce's silence suggested that it hadn't quite worked.

"I guess we all have our vices," Bruce said softly. He reached past Tony and corrected a typo in the code.

Tony smiled. He sent a copy of his work over to another display. "Okay, c'mon. Let's finish up a beta version of this and then we can get a graphic designer to help us put the finishing touches on it. We can have it available to the public by this weekend. And _then_ you, me, and Pepper can take a vacation. Maybe go to Miami, hit the nightclubs…"

"That sounds horrible," Bruce replied, already peering at the code. "You get to assign your character a tragic backstory?"

"Why not? We all have one."

"Nobody in Kim Kardashian's Hollywood has a tragic backstory, I can tell you that much."

"Nobody in that game has _any_ backstory. They're all just mindless drones who love fashion."

"Yeah," Bruce said, his voice vaguely dreamy.

Tony laughed and leaned over to kiss Bruce. "C'mon, between the two of this, this should take no time at all. And then we can get back to important stuff. Like being on the cover of PopGlam."

"Sounds good," Bruce said, and they worked on it until Pepper came up and told them it was time for dinner.

"You look nice," Tony said.

"I deleted that stupid game from my phone and got back to work," Pepper said, tossing her perfectly styled hair over her shoulder. "What have you been up to?"

"I did some research and found that Kim Kardashian's game is making her millions. So we're making an Avengers app!" 

"Oh. Oh dear."

"It's gonna be great!" Tony said.

"Have you gotten likeness rights from your fellow Avengers yet?" Pepper asked.

"I'm sure they'll say yes."

"Tony, you should call them before you get any further with this."

"Fine, fine."

"After dinner."

"Okay, so, checklist… dinner, call my friends and tell them about our awesome new game, sell the game, call Kim Kardashian to gloat, then take a vacation. Where do you guys want to go? What about Thailand?"

Pepper sighed. "You don't like the beach and we can get perfectly good Thai food here in New York. How about Paris?"

"Bruce?" Tony asked.

"How about you two just go?"

"Nuh uh," Tony said. "Paris! We'll get coffee and baguettes. Pepper will get shoes. You can do a photoshoot. It'll be nice." Bruce crossed his arms and Tony said, "Kidding! But seriously, let's get out of town. We're all a little burned out, I think."

Pepper lifted her eyebrows and made a little face at Bruce, who sighed and said, "Okay, sure, that would be… nice."

Tony clapped his hands. "Great! It's all settled, then."

"I think there are still a few tiny steps before it's actually all settled," Pepper murmured. "But yes, I think we could all use a little break. I'm glad you noticed."

"I'm very perceptive," Tony said.

"Mmhmm," Pepper said.

"It's one of my character attributes in Tony Stark's Avengers Assemble!"

"Dinner now," Pepper said. "Everything else, later."

"Fine, fine," Tony said. "Dinner now. Genius plans later."

The following weekend, as Tony's private jet soared over the Atlantic, Tony made himself a mimosa. He sipped it and watched Bruce and Pepper tapping away at the world's new #1 best-selling app, Avengers Assemble. (Pepper had persuaded him to drop his name from the title, pointing out that it took away from the team-based aspect of it. It didn't seem to have hurt sales.) 

He pulled out his own phone and loaded his character, a gorgeous redhead with the power to throw fireballs. Pepper pretended like she wasn't flattered, but Tony knew otherwise. 

By the time they'd landed at Charles de Gaulle, Tony had risen to the rank of leader of the fake Avengers, Pepper had already deleted the app and gotten back to work, and Bruce had quietly switched back to playing Kim Kardashian Hollywood. Tony resolved not to take it personally.

He put an arm around each of them and said, "C'mon, guys. We have dinner reservations, and I think if we all work together, we can get a 5-heart rating tonight."

Bruce and Pepper both rolled their eyes, but they did put away their electronics and follow Tony off the plane. Tony smiled, content at the moment with the knowledge that his life was definitely better than Kim Kardashian's.

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of silly fluff for tarajuku, a great friend both in real life and in Kim Kardashian Hollywood. ♥
> 
> PS: I have a lot of hours logged on KKH and none on the Marvel Avengers Alliance Facebook game; for purposes of this story let's assume that _that_ game doesn't exist in the MCU.


End file.
